Introduction
To provide patients with care that would meet the most important needs that they have, a specialist in nursing is supposed to consider a range of factors that may have an impact on patients’ expectations. During the work, any specialist working in a community faces problems that occur due to age peculiarities. The latter can have a significant influence on the mental condition of patients and cause the appearance of new needs related to nursing care that they receive. This journal entry is devoted to the activities and plans strictly interconnected with the primary objective chosen for the second week of practice in the community environment.
Learning Goals and Objectives
The main learning objective for the second week is to expand the knowledge on the specific needs of older adults receiving nursing care to become familiar with the potential problems that may occur during the work with such patients and learn to prevent them in the future. To fulfill the chosen goal and provide patients with high-quality nursing care, it is necessary to pay increased attention to their needs related both to communication and medical help.
Schedule
Placement Issue
In general, there were no significant issues related to the discussed practices and the reactions of patients. Also, I am satisfied with the collaboration with the nursing team working at the hospital as their experience helped me to avoid numerous problems with my patients. Despite that, the only thing that could be regarded as a problem was the unwillingness of one of my patients to significantly change her lifestyle to improve her physical condition. Nevertheless, this case has helped me to improve my communication skills and learn to persuade patients to strictly follow the prescriptions.
Objective Description
About age peculiarities and their ability to interfere with the nursing process, the attention is to be paid to older adults. It can be more difficult to work with people belonging to this age group because the range of interventions that can be used to help them is limited due to their decreased physical abilities. Apart from that, older adults have unique psychological needs, and many of them can suffer due to the lack of communication (Arnold & Boggs, 2016). The objective indicated at the beginning of the week is to understand the age-specific characteristics of elderly patients to mitigate potential threats that may interfere with the nursing process. To fulfill the discussed objective, I have attempted to improve both theoretical and practical knowledge concerning the specific characteristics of elderly patients. In particular, the method of conflict analysis was successfully applied during the week (Moore, 2014). Due to the opportunity to work with patients of different ethnicities and the presence of the potential conflict, I have managed to better understand the ways to avoid problems with elderly patients.
Conclusion
In the end, the discussed practice has helped me to extend my knowledge on age peculiarities in connection with community-based nursing and improve my conflict resolution skills.
References
Arnold, E. C., & Boggs, K. U. (2016). Interpersonal relationships-E-book: Professional communication skills for nurses (7th Ed.). New York, NY: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Moore, C. W. (2014). The mediation process: Practical strategies for resolving conflict (4th Ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.